‘Corporate mafia’ controls state, says Amnesty

By Tito Drago

Madrid, Spain, Feb. 28 (IPS)— Guatemala is controlled by a “corporate mafia state” in which certain transnational firms “collude with the police, military and common criminals,” said the human rights watchdog Amnesty International, in the Spanish capital Thursday.

Investigator Tracy Ulltveit-Moe, of the United States, in her presentation of the report “Guatemala: Lethal Legacy of Impunity,” stated that past human rights violators in the Central American country remain in power, despite the fact that formal democracy was restored two decades ago.

The document on impunity and new human rights violations was co-presented in Madrid by the head of Amnesty’s Spanish office, Esteban Beltrán, Guatemalan government prosecutor Celvin Galindo, and Denise Becker, survivor of a 1982 massacre in which her parents were killed.

Guatemala’s bloody 36-year civil war ended in 1996, when a peace accord was signed between the government and the insurgent National Guatemalan Revolutionary Union after negotiations that began in Madrid nine years earlier. An estimated 200,000 people, mainly civilians, died in the armed conflict.

Beltrán said that Guatemala appears in the world news when it suffers natural disasters, like Hurricane Mitch in 1998, but not for the ongoing human rights violations occurring there, something that requires maximum attention today.

Ulltveit-Moe stated that Guatemala is different from other Latin American countries that had military dictatorships, like Chile or Argentina, because those responsible for human rights violations remain in power.

Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, dictator in 1982-1983, “the period of greatest intensity of massacres,” has been accused of genocide by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, and is currently president of Guatemala’s Congress, said the researcher.

Amnesty’s report documents the impunity of the 1998 assassination of Bishop Juan José Gerardi, director of the Archbishop of Guatemala’s Human Rights Office.

Galindo, special prosecutor in that investigation, said Thursday that he and a dozen others working on the case were forced to flee the country in 1999 because they were receiving death threats.

Nine witnesses who remained in Guatemala were assassinated, he said.

The text also outlines the lack of justice in the assassination of business executive Edgar Ordóñez Porto, whose body was found mutilated in 1999. The victim’s brother and business partner blames the crime on members of the military whose economic interests were threatened by the small refinery that the family had recently started.

Porto’s case, says Amnesty, is a clear example of human rights violations committed “in the context of the so-called ‘corporate mafia state’, in which certain economic actors, including subsidiaries of some multinational corporations, collude with sectors of the police and military and common criminals.”

“The mass slaughter of thousands of indigenous people and the gross human rights violations suffered by many more in the context of counter-insurgency operations have never been properly tackled, and those responsible at all levels are still walking free and continuing to wield power in today’s Guatemala,” says the London- based human rights organization.

Such impunity “sends a message to those in power that they can literally get away with murder, and paves the way for renewed abuses.”

Massacre survivor, Becker, spoke in Madrid Thursday in a faltering voice, in English because after the incident she was adopted by a US family. “I even lost my mother tongues,” Spanish and the indigenous language Achí, she said.

Becker’s named used to be Dominga Sic Ruiz. She was nine when in the Achí village of Río Negro she witnessed the murder of her parents at the hands of government soldiers and paramilitary troops, who then led 177 women and children into the mountains, where they were massacred.

She hid among the trees, and could hear the gunshots, she said.

Becker is now married and has two young children. She returned to Guatemala in 2000 to search for surviving relatives and to demand justice.

“Until the Guatemalan judiciary undergoes a root and branch reform process to bring it into line with international standards, and until a clear message is sent that no human rights abuses will be tolerated or remain unpunished, there can be no real and lasting peace in Guatemala,” said Amnesty.

The organization’s recommendations include the full implementation of the aspects of the 1996 Peace Accords referring to human rights and the rule of law, including measures to establish the fate of the “disappeared.”

Amnesty also calls for “establishing an effective protection program for judicial personnel and witnesses involved in anti- impunity cases,” and “guaranteeing the safety of human rights defenders.

Further recommendations include “ensuring that law enforcement agencies abide by international human rights standards..., and that all ‘death squads’, private armies and paramilitary forces are disbanded and those members responsible for human rights violations are brought to justice.”

Thousands made homeless in Kenya by gov’t demolition campaign

By Katy Salmon

Nairobi, Kenya, Mar. 1 (IPS)— Tens of thousands of Kenyans have been made homeless by a government demolition campaign in the Indian Ocean city of Mombasa.

Rights groups charge that the government is trying to displace opposition voters ahead of this year’s elections.

Khelef Khalifa of the Mombasa-based Muslims for Human Rights Organization describes the ongoing government campaign to demolish kiosks and slum dwellings in the city as “inhumane.”

More than 5,000 people were made homeless on Feb. 27 when city municipal workers and hired youths pulled down their mud and wattle shacks in Mombasa’s Tudor and Kaa Chonjo slums.

Most are now destitute because they were not given notice to clear their premises.

“They have lost almost everything because, unlike what the authorities were saying, that these people were warned, many of them were caught unaware,” says Khalifa.

“Some parents were not even in the shanties with young kids in the house. And they just came to find out what has happened and the kids were just thrown out on the road.”

Khalifa says many of these people are now sleeping in the city’s churches or mosques or simply out on the streets in the rain.

The previous week, local Member of Parliament (MP), Shariff Nassir, who is also a cabinet minister, issued an order for the houses to be cleared as part of his campaign to clean up the city.

The demolitions began in December, starting with 1,000 roadside kiosks. News reports said the owners were only given 30 minutes notice to save their businesses. Riots followed in which one person was killed and scores injured.

Other clearance operations have taken place at night.

Religious and community leaders have condemned the chaotic, violent clearance operation.

Nassir insists Mombasa, which recently secured city status, must be rid of illegal structures, which he says are being used as dens for thugs and drug peddling.

However, Khalifa does not believe this is really the cabinet minister’s motive. He says the government is trying to evict opposition voters from the city ahead of presidential elections, due before the end of the year.

“What we see here is politics, because most of these dwellers in the slums are from upcountry and there is a lot of resentment, especially from the ruling party,” he said.

“[The] majority of these people are from the opposition; that’s why they are being targeted,” Khalifa added.

In the lead up to the last two general elections, in 1992 and 1997, close to 100 people were killed in ethnic clashes between local and upcountry people. Khalifa fears there could be similar bloodshed this time around.

Muslims for Human Rights is working with 12 other non-governmental organizations under the umbrella of the Coast Rights Forum to bring the issue to court.

“We are definitely going to take legal action against the government for violation of human rights,” says Khalifa.

“This is purely a human rights issue. If those structures are illegal, there is a way of doing it. How can you go about beating people, destroying their houses - for what reason?

“If they are in an area they are not supposed to be, create another place for them before you just take some action like this. This is against all norms of human rights and civilized nations. This is absolutely unacceptable to us.”

Khalifa believes that the law is on the slum dwellers’ side. “There is a law in Kenya - even if you are a title holder of land and you let people stay in that land for over 12 years, those people can claim ownership of that place.

“This is the law. There are some people, who have been living in those slums for 25 years,” he says.

He charges that, if the government were serious about targeting illegal squatters, it would take steps to end the grabbing of public land which is going on all over the country.

“We have a lot of evidence, here in Mombasa and elsewhere in country — road reserves, hospital and school grounds that have been taken by rich people. They have built on the land and they are not touched at all,” says Khalifa.

Mid East anti-corporate globalization movement looks for partners

By Emad Mekay

Cairo, Egypt, Mar. 2 (IPS)— When the streets of Genoa, Seattle and Washington teemed with anti-corporate globalization protesters, the streets of Cairo, Amman, Riyadh, and other Middle Eastern cities were silent. Here, it seems, the movement is as shy as governments are repressive.

“There is a strong debate among the activists here as how to join or be part of the global justice network,” says Gasser Abdel Razeq, a human rights activist. “But the political atmosphere here makes it even harder for us, now more than ever, to do so.”

Activists say political repression has become more of a problem since last September’s terrorist attacks in the United States.

“Mass arrests are not only used very widely against all shades of Islamists, violent or non-violent, but against other political orientations as well,” says Abdel Razeq. “Nobody is immune.”

Repression at home and indifference abroad have contributed to the weakness of the region’s anti-corporate globalization movement, he and others note.

“Reaching out to the Middle East is critical and crucial, now more than ever, for any international movement that seeks a truly global new vision of the world,” Abdel Razeq insists.

“We definitely share the same ideology,” says Karam Saber, executive manager of the Cairo-based Land Center, a group that has pioneered work on issues like labor rights, the environment, and indigenous people’s rights.

“The anti-corporate globalization campaigners in the West and elsewhere come from the same place where we here come from. We are both against all forms of oppression. There is a need now for us to get together. But so far we have not,” Saber adds.

Bahi el-Din Hassan, director for the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, charges that the choice of Doha, Qatar for last year’s World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting was an indication that the international financial and trade community felt it could use the region’s repressive atmosphere to hold meetings away from the eyes and protests of demonstrators.

“This alone is enough reason for action and for international civil society organizations to either set up shop here or share with us the way they view events and analyze them,” he says. “We need to learn how they operate to be able to do it on our own, which is clearly much better.”

To make known their interest in joining the global justice movement, activists here say the Middle East is crammed with stark imbalances, injustices, and economic exploitation - factors that have contributed to a wave of terrorism, religious militancy, rising poverty, and resentment.

They argue that the struggle of Palestinians, in the face of US-backed Israeli military, might epitomizes the fight against economic and political domination.

“For the international anti-corporate globalization movement to have roots in this region, they must take note that Israeli practices against the helpless Palestinians typify the ultimate pattern of Western domination against the poor, the landless, and the defenseless,” Hassan says.

Hassan is one of the few Arab activists who attended this year’s World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He and others here fault the global social justice movement for ignoring what they see as a classic example of economic power leading to political domination in the occupied Palestinian territories.

“How can the movement be credible when they look the other way when it comes to Israel?” Hassan says. “Israel acts as the sole guardian of US economic and political exploitation and supremacy in the region.”

Rick Rowden, a campaigner at the Washington-based advocacy group, Results, says he agrees civil society groups in the West and elsewhere must reach out to potential partners in the Middle East.

Official repression by Western-backed regimes has led people to turn to radicalism as a way of expressing themselves, he says, adding, “I’ve understood this as reason why the mosques have gotten so powerful - it’s one of the only places people are freer to do so.”

Activists in the West appear to scratch their heads, however, when confronted with the question of why the Middle East - a key strategic area with some 260 million people - has received little attention from the international community.

According to Nancy Alexander, a veteran Washington-based activist and analyst of the World Bank and structural adjustment, some academics have criticized the role of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, primarily in Egypt and, to a lesser degree, Jordan, but the “presence of these groups is relatively sparse.”

In Alexander’s view, it is up to Middle East groups to take the initiative and extend a hand to outside groups. “Since there are few groups in the region explicitly protesting around IFIs (international financial institutions) or even globalization issues, the invitation is not really there for groups from outside,” she says.

Activists here, however, say they are doing just that - reaching out with direct contact and, where possible, through media.

“We know very well that we have to deal with our problems ourselves,” says Hassan. “At the end of the day, it is us who will work out a solution for our problems, whether they (international civil society groups) are with us or not. But we at least need to start [to] debate them. They, too, have to do something.”

Protests and repression heat up in Ecuador

By Kintto Lucas

Quito, Ecuador, Mar. 1 (IPS) -- On Thursday the mayor of Coca, the capital of Ecuador’s northeastern province of Orellana, issued a distraught call for help to confront the Ecuadorian military’s violent reaaction to a protest held in opposition to the construction of an oil pipeline in the country’s Amazon region.

“Please help us, please! They continue to fire on the city! A colleague from the municipal office has been injured!” shouted mayor Guadalupe Llori into the telephone Thursday.

Llori reported that the town’s residents, angry at the military’s crackdown, had set the local offices of the electrical company on fire.

Two children and two adults have died as a result of the violence in the Ecuadorian northeast this week, according to unofficial sources. The army has arrested some 40 people, while the various health centers in Orellana have treated more than 300 people who were injured by military troops.

Interior Minister Marcelo Merlo denied that the military crackdown had caused any deaths, and accused local governments and the organizations staging the anti-pipeline protests of blackmail, saying they were only seeking recompense from OCP Limited, the pipeline construction company.

“There are civilians with gunshot wounds. Helicopters are launching tear gas bombs against the population. This provocation is deeply upsetting the people who had come out to protest peacefully. It is essential that the people in Quito know the truth about what is happening here,” Llori said.

Protesters in the provinces of Orellana and Sucumbíos, the latter bordering Colombia, are demanding that the Gustavo Noboa government press OCP Limited to provide $10 million for local development programs and projects as a means of reparations for the social and environmental damages that the pipeline will cause.

Residents have set up roadblocks, taken over oil wells and occupied the airport in Coca as well as the TAME airline’s offices in Nueva Loja, capital of Sucumbíos.

According to government reports, the protests have shut down operations at 62 oil wells and a refinery, costing the oil companies more than $2.2 million in losses so far.

The Ecuadorian government declared a state of emergency in Sucumbíos on Feb. 22 and in Orellana on Feb. 23, when the protests were just getting under way. The justification from Quito was that the border area had to be secured following the rupture in peace talks between the Colombian government and the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

However, Noboa acknowledged on Feb. 25 that the emergency declaration came in response to the protests.

Mayor Llori said that the local governments and civil society organizations involved in the demonstrations are open to dialogue, but first demand that the military halt its violent tactics and that the federal government lift the state of emergency.

“We cannot engage in dialogue while bombs are falling on us, or while they want to imprison us local authorities who have participated in the protest,” said the mayor, who faces an arrest warrant issued by the commander of the Fourth Division of the Amazonas Army, Gen. Jorge Miño.

The attempts of the protest organizers to hold a discussion with Miño on Wednesday and Thursday of this week proved fruitless, said Luis Bermeo, prefect (governor) of Sucumbíos.

Meanwhile, the presence of the armed forces in Orellana has continued to expand.

The military also ordered the arrest of several journalists and the closure of La Jungla radio station, accusing the latter of inciting the protests.

Three other local radio stations, Stereo Cumandá, Alegría and Municipal, received orders from the military not to broadcast information about the crackdown, says Elsie Monge, head of the Ecumenical Commission on Human Rights.

In February 2001, peasant farmers, indigenous groups, merchants and local authorities from Orellana and Sucumbíos staged a similar strike to demand infrastructure projects, such as road improvements and electrical distribution. Many roads in the region are not paved and electricity flows only eight hours each day.

The government promised to carry out the infrastructure works necessary to resolve the problems of both provinces, from which $60 billion in petroleum has been extracted over the last two decades, according to official figures. Ninety percent of the area’s residents live in poverty.

But a year has gone by and Quito has not kept is promises. The provinces’ representatives announced a new strike with the same demands and in support of the small and middle-sized farming operations that have been hurt by falling coffee prices.

Governor Bermeo said that in addition to the unkept promises, construction continues on the pipeline, which he says will cause serious environmental damage while providing millions of dollars in profits to the oil companies, without even minimal compensation for the local population.

The peasant farmers of Orellana are struggling to improve production and avoid being forced into illegally growing coca (the raw material for cocaine), according to Pedro García, a local farmer.

“We want to continue planting coffee, or some other profitable crop, but to do that we need credits, subsidies, and roads to transport our products. Without them, we will end up planting coca,” just as has occurred in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, he said.

Several Sucumbíos farmers with food crops planted on land near the Colombian border have seen their fields destroyed or damaged by the glyphosate herbicide used in aerial fumigation operations aimed at eradicating the illicit coca plantations inside Colombian territory.

The protest organizers proposed that a commission of legislators from the different political parties, who have already met with President Noboa, verify in person the situation in Orellana and Sucumbíos, and open dialogue with the government, which has refused to negotiate.

Legislative deputy Nina Pacari, a member of the commission, said the repression ordered by the government and the hostile statements made by officials, such as minister Merlo, are only feeding resentment among the local population.

“How can they be calling the protesters blackmailers? The people live in the two provinces that for years have been contributing a large portion of the State budget, while they continue to live in poverty. The government’s declarations are unfair and inhumane,” Pacari said.

The two provinces remain under a state of emergency and curfews are in force. Those who violate the restrictions are subject to the Military Penal Code.

US engages in world-wide terror war

Compiled by Eamon Martin

Mar. 6— Just a week after 10 US soldiers died in a helicopter crash in the southern Philippines after ferrying the first of at least 150 Special Operations Forces to advise Philippine soldiers in subduing a small Muslim insurgency, the Pentagon confirmed on Thursday plans to send another 100 to 200 military advisers to the former Soviet state of Georgia and several hundred more to Yemen to help those governments root out what is being termed “terrorism” on their territory.

At the same time, the administration reaffirmed its request for $98 million to train, equip, and provide surveillance for new battalions in Colombia to protect an 800 kilometer oil pipeline owned by California-based Occidental Petroleum Company despite the collapse of a three-year peace process between insurgents and the government.

Meanwhile, renewed speculation over US intentions toward Iraq rose sharply this week amid preparations for Vice President Dick Cheney’s upcoming tour of US allies in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and Turkey.

In order to persuade the region’s nervous leaders of the seriousness and long-term nature of Washington’s commitment, the betting in Washington is that Cheney will pledge as many as 250,000 US ground troops, as well as its formidable firepower, to ousting President Saddam Hussein.

All of this came within a breathless ten days during which the administration’s global military reach seemed to increase by the hour. They came on top of several months of an intense military campaign in Afghanistan during which Washington established access to military bases throughout Central Asia and even began building what appears to be a permanent base near Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan.

US forces are now hunting terrorists in Afghanistan, dispensing advice in the Philippines and pondering counter-terror programs in Yemen, Indonesia, Georgia and beyond. In addition, the Bush administration is preparing to provide US military advisors, weapons and special training to governments in Central Asia, the Mideast and Africa over the next six months as part of an expanded effort to mount proxy fights against so-called terrorists in more than half a dozen countries.

The administration has sought a 27% funding increase for a federal program designed to bolster militaries in other countries. Money, material and US military trainers would go to Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Jordan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, a senior Defense Department official said. In addition, the Pentagon is sending military trainers to Djibouti, Ethiopia and Oman.

“I think there is expansion without at least a clear direction,” noted Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in quiet understatement.

Daschle pointed out that the Bush Administration was asking Congress to appropriate $4.7 trillion for the defense budget over the next ten years, $600 billion more than was originally going to be committed last year.

“If we expect to kill every terrorist in the world, that’s going to keep us going beyond Doomsday,” exclaimed Senator Robert Byrd.

President Bush has repeatedly vowed that the US war on terror will take many years and span the globe.

Afghanistan

Americans have suffered their highest casualties in combat since the war in Afghanistan began, with at least eight soldiers killed during operations in the east of the country. This week’s action was reportedly the biggest US-led ground offensive of the war.

General Tommy Franks, head of the US Central Command, said about 40 Americans had also been wounded as part of Operation Anaconda, which is seeking to root out Taliban and al-Qaida forces.

General Franks said that, despite the deaths of US troops, Operation Anaconda was going well and had claimed 100-200 enemy lives.

As for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader the US blames for the attacks on Sept. 11, top Pentagon officials are increasingly arguing that — alive or dead — he is irrelevant.

“Everybody wants to know where Osama bin Laden is. The next question is, who cares?” said one Defense Department official, reflecting an attitude widespread in Pentagon corridors.

“Osama bin Laden as a center of gravity is gone,” he said.

Indeed, a top US military official this week stated that finding the Saudi-born militant is not even one of the top priorities of the US war on terrorism.

“I wouldn’t call [getting bin Laden] a prime mission,” said Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers.

Georgia

This week, Russia told the United States to stay out of its “backyard,” after news that scores of US troops and helicopters were heading to the republic of Georgia, on Russia’s southern border.

“We have a clear connection between Chechen [guerrillas] and al-Qaida,” a Pentagon official said.

A potentially significant breach between the US and Russia developed as details of the operation were leaked, with Moscow outraged at the prospect of US instructors being deployed in the Caucasus Mountains.

Georgia’s ambassador, Zurap Abashidzea, said a two-stage operation is about to start to clear the targeted area, the Pankisi Gorge. First, about 7,000 Chechens living there will be moved. Then police units will weed out possible “terrorists,” previously referred to as “Chechen rebels.” If the police meet resistance, the commandos will attack.

Relations between Moscow and Washington are strained, with Russia annoyed by the continuing US presence in two more former Soviet republics, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, bordering Afghanistan. To the Kremlin’s irritation, the US is building an air base outside the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, with a smaller facility in Tajikistan.

Washington is considering sending more than $50million in equipment to aid the Georgian military.

Philippines

Hundreds of US troops are fighting alongside Filipino forces against militant groups in the Philippines.

US troops have begun training exercises with Filipino troops in an operation that so far involves more than 600 US personnel.

About 160 US Special Forces troops are already on Basilan, the island residence of Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.

Ten US soldiers were killed this past week when their helicopter crashed into the sea off the southern Philippine island of Mindanao. The cause of the crash remains a mystery.

There are increasing concerns that the conflict could escalate into a battle with other rebel groups. The islands are also home to the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a long-established Muslim secessionist group that signed a peace treaty with the government in 1996, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a breakaway faction that is currently negotiating with the government.

An MILF spokesman last month warned that his men would fire on US troops that wandered into rebel strongholds.

Iraq

Sen. Joseph Lieberman said on Sunday that US action against Baghdad might begin without notification to Congress to allow President Bush “to employ surprise in attacking or going against the leadership of Iraq.”

Lieberman is one of 10 leading members of Congress who have urged Bush to make Iraq the next target in the US terror war.

President Bush is eager to depose Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein by including his nation in the list of potential terror war targets. Although the Gulf War “officially ended” in 1991, US and UK warplanes have continued to bomb the country while maintaining “no-fly zones” over particular areas. More significantly, however, United Nations (UN) economic sanctions —enforced by the US— continue to do the most damage. Multiple investigations, including those of the UN itself, have revealed that an estimated 1.5million Iraqis have died since the beginning of Operation Desert storm, with most of the deaths attributable to the sanctions and a continuing average of 5,000 Iraqi children dying every month.

This week, US officials said the US government is financing and hosting the largest-ever gathering of former Iraqi military and security officers at a conference to plan the overthrow of Hussein.

The conference, expected to be held by the end of next month at a military site in or near Washington, will include some 200 military and security officials from the various opposition groups united under the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a London-based umbrella group dedicated to Saddam’s ouster.

Despite Washington’s hard line towards Iraq, the US is the world’s largest consumer of Iraqi crude oil and depends on Baghdad for some 9 percent of its oil imports. US firms gobbled up some 790,000 barrels per day of Iraqi crude oil in 2001 — nearly half of Iraq’s crude sales.

Bosnia

German forces sealed Bosnia’s border with Montenegro over the weekend in a desperate attempt to cut off former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic’s escape routes as criticism mounted over two failed United States-led raids last week.

Thursday’s operation began at 8am when helicopters swooped on Celebici, disgorging dozens of US commandos in black face masks. After herding the village’s children into a room in a local school they moved from house to house, knocking down and blowing open locked doors.

“They surrounded the children and put snipers around the school,” said Milko Todovic, 57, a teacher. “Then they broke into all the houses.”

A little over an hour later the Americans left empty-handed.

Yemen

The White House has approved a mission to send hundreds of US troops to Yemen to train and advise Yemeni forces hunting remnants of the al-Qaida network.

“We expect results... and the Yemeni government is responding,” said President Bush.

Yemen’s ambassador to the United States said that Yemen had already asked for military assistance, ranging from training for Yemeni troops to helicopters, communications equipment and other military gear. “We’re asking for everything,” said the envoy, Abdulwahab Alhajjri. “You name it, we want it.”

Yemen is perhaps the most extreme example of countries to which the United States is considering providing assistance. It is not as friendly with the United States as the Philippines and the republic of Georgia are, and its government remains uneasy about any US troop presence. The Yemeni ambassador, however, said his government might welcome the temporary deployment of small numbers of American military trainers.

While US officials said the details were still being worked out, they said the troops could leave as early as next week. They would consist predominantly of Special Forces, but could also include intelligence experts and other specialists.

Spain

This week, the Bush administration slapped new restrictions on Spain’s Basque separatists, freezing the assets of 21 people with suspected links to the ETA separatist front. The US treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill, said it showed “a net being cast on all terrorist parasites that threaten our allies and our national security.”

Indonesia

In the view of the Pentagon, Indonesia has been slow to crack down on terrorists, declining to search hard for the cleric Riudan Isamuddin, who they say may be the mastermind of a plot to blow up the American Embassy in Singapore.

“We are looking for ways to cooperate with Indonesia against this common enemy,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the head of the United States Pacific Command, said this week.

At the Pentagon’s urging, Congress late last year eased restrictions on the training of Indonesian military officers in the United States that had been imposed in 1999 after Indonesian troops slaughtered thousands of civilians in East Timor. Many military and Congressional officials say they expect the Pentagon to propose sending Special Operations troops to Indonesia next to train military units in counter-terrorism tactics.

The training is likely to draw opposition from critics of Indonesia in Congress, led by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, who is chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations. Admiral Blair met with Leahy this week in an effort to ease some of his concerns that the Indonesian military had done little to reform itself.

Colombia

Long-standing resistance on Capitol Hill to expanded US military involvement in Colombia appears to be shifting, encouraging Bush administration officials who believe the South American country should be included in the terror war campaign.

Suddenly last week, after decades of insurrectionary civil war in the country, Colombian and US officials changed the label applied to guerrilla fighters from “insurgents” to “terrorists.”

Congress approved $2 billion in largely military aid for Colombia over the last two years for stopping the production and export of narcotics.

Senator Leahy has indicated that the counter-narcotics policy should now be reviewed, noting that Colombian president Andres Pastrana is now calling the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia “insurrectionists.”

Sources: Associated Press, BBC, Christian Science Monitor, Daily Telegraph (UK), Independent (UK), International Herald Tribune, Inter Press News Service, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Reuters, The Scotsman, Times (UK), United Press International, Washington Post, Washington Times

Colombia decrees war zone; FARC warns ‘gringo army’

The bodies of five alleged rebels killed in a shootout with police in Medellin on Wed., Feb. 27. Photo courtesy of www.Unseen-news.com

Compiled by Sean Marquis

Mar. 6— The Colombian government has declared six areas in the south of the country a war zone and placed them under military rule.

The move comes as the army continues its offensive against rebels from the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Defense Minister Gustavo Bell said the armed forces would control public safety in the regions, which have come under rebel attack since the collapse of peace talks last week.

The newly declared war zone includes spots just 50 miles from the capital Bogota.

Following the declaration, military commanders in the war zone will have special powers to restrict people’s movements and examine identity papers, as well as prohibit the bearing of arms and alcohol consumption.

On Feb. 20, after the kidnapping of a senator by the FARC, Colombian President Andres Pastrana ordered the airforce to begin bombing rebel-held areas and sent the army in to reclaim the nearly 17,000 square mile area which had been ceded to the rebels to jump start peace talks three years ago.

Industrial sabotage

Last week, guerrilla teams knocked out electricity and telephone service to hundreds of communities and isolated the southern state of Caqueta by setting up roadblocks and destroying bridges. The chaos led General Gustavo Porras, army commander in Caqueta, to tender his resignation under threat of being fired.

On Feb. 28, FARC guerrillas also hit three electricity pylons and a transmitting station near the border with Venezuela, leaving the oil-producing Arauca department without power.

In total, some 150 communities -- about 11 percent of Colombia’s municipalities -- were without power and left with spotty phone service, according to Colombian officials.

More than 60 municipalities lack or must ration electricity in the southern departments of Cauca and Nariño, in the central departments of Boyacá, Caquetá, Cundinamarca, Huila, and Tolima, and in Meta in the central-east.

Sixteen municipalities in Caquetá, nine in Huila, and seven in Cauca have had no electricity since Mar. 1, when members of the FARC dynamited an electricity generating plant in Huila.

The most serious situation is in Caquetá, where nearly 300,000 people are without potable water because that service operates based on electricity, said Colombia’s vice-minister of Health, Carlos Castro.

More war for US

The Bush administration hopes to use concern over terrorism to build support in Congress for direct aid to the Colombian government to fight leftist rebels, officials say.

US officials are beginning to portray the Colombian government’s struggle as part of the broader, worldwide fight against terrorists, and they say it deserves a military support program.

Congress had specifically barred support for helping the Colombian government put down the rebels when it approved more than $1 billion -- which now totals closer to $2 billion -- in mostly military aid to Colombia as part of a purportedly anti-drug program.

That may be changing.

Recently, President Bush proposed an extra $439 million to provide military intelligence and spare parts to the Colombian armed forces. The United States already has 250 US military personnel, 50 Pentagon civilian employees and 100 civilian contractors in Colombia.

In addition, Washington wants an extra $98 million to train, arm, and provide air support for Colombian troops to protect a 480-mile oil pipeline jointly owned by the Occidental Petroleum Corp., with headquarters in Los Angeles, and the Colombian state oil company.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) has called for a “top-to-bottom review” of a drug-focused policy, which he said had failed. As part of that review, Leahy said Congress should consider sending in American combat troops.

“It’s not risk free. It may well involve Americans on the front lines against the insurgency in helping the Colombian Army enter the 21st century. And it’s not going to solve our drug problem,” Leahy said.

Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said it was time to view Colombia’s instability as a regional security threat and consider giving direct support for the counterinsurgency.

In the meantime, officials are trying to influence how Americans view the Colombian rebels. White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, repeatedly salted his comments about Colombia last week with references to the FARC as terrorists.

‘Worse than Vietnam’

The FARC say they are not fooled by the US “war on drugs” rhetoric and are ready to take on the United States as well as the Colombian government.

“I smell a war brewing here, and the gringo army with its Ranger force is stoking the fire,” said senior FARC commander Fabian Ramirez in an interview at his camp last week. “But I can tell them that this will be worse than Vietnam for them.”

FARC commanders believe the United States may assume a greater role in a war that has claimed more than 35,000 lives in the past decade alone.

Ramirez, one of the architects of some of the heaviest defeats inflicted on the army in 38 years of conflict, said many of his forces had split into units as small as 12-60 fighters, presenting a highly mobile and extremely difficult target to detect or hit.

In recent days, FARC guerrillas have killed a handful of civilians they suspected of spying for the army or for right-wing paramilitaries, the rebels’ arch-nemesis. The slayings appear to be a brutal attempt at hindering enemy intelligence gathering rather than indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population.

Colombian Justice Minister Armando Estrada said last week that his country is hoping for US collaboration, which could take the form of shifting funds from the country’s anti-drugs fight to combating “terrorist organizations.”

Rather than confronting the army head on, the guerrillas have adopted a strategy of industrial sabotage. Carried out by small units of two or three rebels, the campaign seems nearly impossible to stop.

“Three or four guerrillas with some sticks of dynamite can leave a whole city without energy,” said Daniel Garcia-Peña, a former Colombian peace commissioner. “It’s not a matter of military capacity or superiority but has a lot to do with the nature of the conflict. I’m very skeptical that we can change the correlation of forces on the battlefield in a significant way.”

With the peace process ended, one of the biggest questions now is how much the FARC may have grown in the last three years.

One senior guerrilla source claimed the FARC may have doubled its numbers over the last three years, which could put the total combat force at anywhere from 25,000 fighters to more than 30,000. No government or international sources have confirmed such an expansion.

“As long as unemployment and poverty are rising, and hospitals and schools are closing, then we will recruit more fighters,” Ramirez said. “People find they have no other form of protest except to join insurgent ranks.”

‘Gunpoint’ elections

Continuing its hostage-taking campaign, the FARC kidnapped presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt last week as she traveled by car in the southern countryside of San Vicente del Caguán.

The rebels reportedly told the others who were traveling with Betancourt and who were later released, that they will continue to kidnap and attack the political leaders and candidates who supported the rupture in the peace talks. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for Mar. 10.

The leftist guerrilla organizations and the right-wing paramilitary squads use the kidnapping of candidates as a pressure tactic, says Jorge Rojas, leader of the Paz Colombia movement, which unites social and activist organizations that promote a negotiated way out of the country’s decades-long civil war.

The guerrillas and the paramilitaries “impose their own candidates, control local administrations, and interfere in the application of justice, without inciting concrete actions from the government armed forces against these forms of violence,” Rojas said.

These organizations push certain candidates or prevent others from seeking office “at gunpoint” in 40 percent of Colombian territory he said.

The FARC has issued a statement calling on Colombians to boycott the upcoming Mar. 10 legislative elections and the May 26 presidential elections, arguing that none of the candidates are interested in peace or resolving the country’s social problems.

Sources: Agence France Presse, BBC, Houston Chronicle, IPS, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle

WORLD BRIEFS

Israel invades Palestinian refugee camps
The Feb. 28 invasion of Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank drew sharp criticism from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who called for the immediate withdrawal of all troops.

The raids, in the West Bank town of Nablus, claimed the lives of 11 Palestinians, with more than 100 injured, according to early estimates.

Battle tanks and helicopter gunships supported the attacks, described as the fiercest since the current Palestinian uprising began in September 2000. (IPS)

‘War on drugs’ is over in Scotland
Scotland’s drugs minister has officially declared that the 30-year “war on drugs” is over. “The only time you will hear me use terms such as ‘war on drugs’ or ‘just say no’ is to denigrate them,” he said.

Instead Simpson has pledged to ensure that Scotland’s harm-reduction, methadone, and rehabilitation services are fixed.

Simpson, who was a prison doctor, said, “We need to provide [drug users] with information. We need to say, ‘We’d rather you didn’t take ecstasy, but if you make that decision, here are the risks.’ We have to give them all the information they need to take responsibility for themselves.” (Sunday Herald)

Filipinos protest US military presence
In Manila, Philippines, about 2,000 people burned the US flag and lay an effigy of Uncle Sam in a mock coffin in the biggest anti-US protest in the country since hundreds of US soldiers began arriving last month.

Hundreds of anti-riot troops guarded the US Embassy in Manila as protesters angrily shouted slogans demanding the withdrawal of US troops from this former US colony. (Reuters)

Argentinians throw excrement at Congress
Argentine protesters hurled excrement at Congress on Feb. 28 as lawmakers began debating a belt-tightening 2002 budget bill.

With banners reading “put the shit where it belongs” under a picture of former Presidents Carlos Menem and Fernando de la Rua, 200 protesters threw bags of excrement at Congress to vent their anger at years of recession and government austerity.

Earlier in the day, depositors fed up with banking curbs that have frozen billions of dollars worth of savings since December, threw excrement at a bank in Mar del Plata some 300 miles south of Buenos Aires. (Reuters)

AIDS devastating Africa
With a speed that has staggered health workers, Africa and AIDS have become virtually synonymous. The latest figures say it all: according to estimates from UNAIDS, an umbrella group for five UN agencies, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization, 34.3 million people in the world have AIDS, with 24.5 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

That means Africa has 70% of the world’s victims. Or, in human terms, that 8 out of 10 people who die of AIDS are African. (Sunday Herald)